20 Fun Facts About Chicago
Tourism:
1) Cook County is the second-most populous county in the United States after Los Angeles County!
2) In 2018, Chicago welcomed approximately 58 million international and domestic visitors, making it the second most visited city in the United States behind New York City’s 65 million visitors.
3) Chicago O’Hare International Airport is the 6th busiest airport in the world by the number of total passengers, according to Airports Council International’s 2017 data. O’Hare is also the third busiest airport in the USA!
4) Chicago is known as the Railroad Capital of the United States! Over 1,300 passenger and freight trains depart from the city each weekday.
Bodies of Water:
5) Lake Michigan is the only Great Lake that is entirely located in the United States. Lake Michigan is also the second-largest Great Lake by volume!
6) Lake Michigan’s max depth is 928 ft, and the average depth is 279ft. The maximum length of Lake Michigan is 307 miles, and the maximum width is 118 miles!.
7) The word “Michigan” is believed to have come from the word “michi-gami,” which means “great water” in the native American Ojibwe language.
8) The Chicago River is the only river in the world that flows backward!
9) Chicago’s Lake Michigan shoreline is 28 miles long and is completely human-made.
The Chicago Flag:
10) The four red stars on the Chicago flag represent four major historical events in Chicago: Fort Dearborn, the Great Chicago Fire, the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, and the Century of Progress Exposition in 1933-1934.
11) The top blue stripe on the Chicago flag represents the North Branch of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan, and the bottom blue stripe signifies the South Branch of the Chicago River and the canal.
12) The three background white stripes on the Chicago Flag from top to bottom represent the North Side, the West Side, and the South Side of Chicago.
Entertainment and the Arts
13) Chicago is home to the first all-color television station! NBC 5 Chicago/WMAQ became the first station in the world to be completely in color on April 15, 1956.
14) Chicago has over 200 theaters, 250 live music venues, and 200 professional dance companies!
15) The Art Institute of Chicago is home to the most extensive collection of impressionist paintings outside of the Louvre in Paris.
16) There are approximately 60 museums, 200 art galleries, and 20 neighborhood art centers in Chicago.
17) Chicago is home to 369 landmarks and 59 historic districts.
Health Developments:
18) In 1937, Chicago became the home of the first U.S. blood bank! Dr. Benard Fantus developed this significant medical advancement at the Cook County Hospital in Chicago.
19) Dale Hale Williams, one of the first African American physicians, performed the first open-heart surgery at Provident Hospital in Chicago in 1893. Williams graduated from Northwestern with a degree in medicine in 1883.
20) The flow of the Chicago River was fully reversed in 1900 to prevent the spread of waterborne illnesses such as typhoid fever and cholera that plagued Chicagoans as a result of sewage and pollution dumping in the Chicago River.
